The Trouble with toilets

Text by June Bellebono

I find myself constantly fantasising on what my first night out will be like once nightlife reopens.

What will be the first cocktail I’ll order? Where will my night start? And where will it end? Who will it start with? And who will it end with? What am I gonna wear? Am I gonna have multiple outfit changes?!

The beauty of fantasising is that we can omit uncomfortable realities. When I imagine this scenario, I don’t have to think about having to wear a large hooded coat so that I can hide myself for the tube journey, or about budgeting during the night to make sure I have money for a safe cab home. I definitely never have to fantasise about what my toilet experiences for the night will be like.

I’d compare the feeling of walking into a venue and seeing they have an all-gender toilet to getting on the bus and being able to sit at your favourite seat. It’s calming, joyful, safe, and unexpected. But if you are trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming, gendered toilets have a lot more at stake than an unfavourable bus seat. This experience can be at best uncomfortable, and at worst actively dangerous.

In their recent play Overflow, trans theatre-maker Travis Alabanza explores friendship, allyship, transness, clubs and toilets (where the play takes place). It starts off with a monologue on what they term the ‘pre-emptive piss’—the safety measure they have to take to avoid needing to use a public toilet while on a night out, due to the risks that come with using one. They half-jokingly note how this simple act has the power to make someone feel organised and in control of their life; an empowering act of choice. For trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people the pre-emptive piss is part of organising our night. We have to strategise and time our toilet use because, too often, once we’re out, we no longer have access to a safe choice.

Travis told me “Throughout the pandemic we’ve seen —despite more pressing issues— press, media and now law dictating what trans people are, speaking about us without us, and painting us as both perpetrators of danger and also silent victims without a voice. Rather than place transness as the questionable presence, and put trans femininity as the hot seat identity, with Overflow I wanted to examine how cisgender people perpetuate harm, and have them question themselves. Rather than imagining the bathroom as a place they have to let trans people in - show a performance where it is a place that we own!”

Overflow’s main character (played by Reece Lyons) shares with us the ups and downs of her long-time friendship with a cis woman, and how she’s had a lifetime of taking the blame for things she didn’t do. It’s hard not to apply this to the current discourse around transness. Trans people are blamed for the supposed danger of sexual violence that providing all-gender toilets (and other facilities like changing rooms) represent, despite the fact that we are not the perpetrators of this danger, but victims.

I hope we will all soon be returning to nightlife with a new-found appreciation for how important it is to our lives. This toolkit by Good Night Out Campaign will help venues to reflect on how easy the steps towards trans inclusion can be, whether that’s providing all-gender toilets or posters with trans-positive messaging.

Most importantly, I hope that the fantasy of a safe, fun and liberating nightlife can turn into a reality, for all of us.